Tech Giants Including Samsung Sued by KAIST Over Infringement of FinFET Technology

Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm and Global Foundries are being sued in the Federal Court of Texas by the US-based Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) for usage of their FinFet technologies without any permit.

Qualcomm had recently announced that its Snapdragon 835 processor will be produced using Samsung’s advanced 10nm FinFET technology. Both the companies made an announcement by conducting an event and giving out press releases.

The incident happened when Samsung invited FinFet developer and one of the partners of KAIST, Lee Jong-ho, to show Samsung engineers how the FinFET process works.

KAIST IP said, “Samsung Electronics could save time and costs to develop the technologies by duplicating Lee’s invention without paying royalties. It continued to expropriate Lee’s achievements without consideration of his rights or proper compensation.”

Samsung is known to use the FinFet technology on most of its phone models including the Galaxy series. "We proposed a contract when we developed FinFet but Samsung did not accept it. Though it started to make mobile phones using FinFet it resisted paying patent fees," said KAIST IP. Due to this lawsuit, there might also be a delay in the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S8 phone.

Additionally, in 2014 Global Foundries also collaborated with Samsung to manufacture semiconductor chips based on FinFET. Thus, KAIST has also named Global Foundries in the lawsuit for infringing its technology.

The FinFET technology is already lawfully used by many companies including Intel Corporation. In 2011 Intel applied the FinFet technology to its products and in 2012 acknowledged its use of the technology and signed an official license contract with KAIST.

Based on data analyses from MaxVal’s Litigation Databank, we see that the judgements awarded in past by the Judge Rodney Gilstrap favours both the plaintiff and the defendants, depending upon the nature of suit and allegations.